Creating 3-D Red/Blue Anaglyphs from Photographs
There are software programs that automatically combine the left and right images to form the anaglyph. Instructions to manually create anaglyphs in Photoshop are in a link at the end of this discussion. Some software will take a single image and split the channels to create a 3-D image. The quality of the single image anaglyph varies as the parallax or stereo effect is the same for the foreground and background and is not as good a left/right image anaglyph. In Photoshop a very basic anaglyph can be made from a single image by moving the red channel slightly to the left. Anaglyph software will take the left and right images, adjust the color for the proper channel, combine the left, and right images into a half or full anaglyph and can automatically align and rotate the images to the correct orientation. Some alignment is necessary when using a one-lens/camera system. StereoPhoto Maker software is a popular free download that will create several different types of 3-D images. StereoPhoto Maker has an auto-alignment feature that works well to position “free hand” created images. StereoPhoto Maker will keep the same file resolution and sizes of the original. http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/
Anaglyph with good depth.
Red/blue, or red/cyan glasses are needed to view an anaglyph. The red/blue lens are somewhat better filters, but the red-cyan produce somewhat brighter color at the cost of more ghosting as they are not as pure filters. Red/cyan is the most common anaglyph. Some eye-related medical conditions prevent some people from seeing 3-D anaglyphs. The glasses are available with low cost paper frames or higher quality plastic frames and better lenses.
Red/blue, red/cyan glasses to view anaglyph
The greater the distance between the left and right images, the greater the parallax, the more pronounced the depth of the 3-D effect. The subject matter in the foreground of the anaglyph will have the least amount of parallax or even a reverse parallax. The background or more distant subject matter will have the most parallax. Anaglyphs of distant subjects require more distance between the left and right images, closer subject matter requires less distance between the left and right images, reducing the amount of parallax in the anaglyph. The effect of the parallax in the anaglyph when viewed without the red/cyan glasses, in printer’s terms, looks like the image is significantly out of register.
